


rain

by cxlesstial



Series: that's rough buddy [2]
Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Anger, Bad Parent Splinter (TMNT), Bad Parenting, Donatello (TMNT) Needs a Hug, Emotional Baggage, Emotionally Repressed, Gen, Hurt Donatello (TMNT), One Shot, Rain, Short One Shot, donnie is angry and sad and he has every single right to be, literally im so angry at splinter god wtf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26022646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cxlesstial/pseuds/cxlesstial
Summary: Donnie thought he’d hate the rain by now.He knew for sure that the others couldn't stand it. Everything bad seemed to happen during rainstorms -  Splinter dying, bleeding out on that cold, wet pavement. April getting possessed - hell, even him dying that night, getting torn apart and haphazardly shoved back together. He’d thought he’d hate the rain.He almost hoped he’d hate the rain like his brothers did.
Series: that's rough buddy [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1912768
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	rain

Donnie thought he’d hate the rain by now.

He knew for sure that the others couldn't stand it. Everything bad seemed to happen during rainstorms - Splinter dying, bleeding out on that cold, wet pavement. April getting possessed - hell, even him dying that night, getting torn apart and haphazardly shoved back together. He’d thought he’d hate the rain.

He almost hoped he’d hate the rain like his brothers did.

He saw the looks on their faces when the weathermen were relaying what they expected for the night and… that there’d be a storm approaching. Saw the pinched frown on Leo’s face or the way Raph pulls Chompy a bit closer and ignores the rest of them or the way Mikey quietly pleads with Donnie to get the pizza that night, a bit more insistent then usual. 

Even if Donnie himself didn’t dislike the rain he understood why the others were upset. He understood why they never wanted to step foot into another rainstorm, see someone die before them like they had multiple times. The rain was depressing and gloomy and it reminds them of bad times. He _gets_ it.

He _gets_ it, but does he feel the same? 

_Why doesn’t he feel the same?_ he thinks absentmindedly, walking through the dark, damp sewer tunnels that he was so accustomed to - to get their dinner for that night, of course. No other reason.

April had sent a text to the group-chat that she’d be over, and that she was bringing Casey too. Not for any reason in particular, just wanted to come over. 

It makes him wonder about April. And Casey. Did they hate the rain too? They’d seen everything that he had, they’d lived through the same traumatic experiences. Maybe it was different with humans? Er, _one_ human and one alien-created-weapon. He’d have to ask. Later though. Much later.

He reaches the manhole, looks up at it for a second, eyes tracing the memorized pattern engraved into it, contemplating. He could hear the gentle rain, just starting out, pattering the street quietly. He could smell it, clean and fresh and he closed his eyes. Thinking. He could smell Mikey’s pizza, too, at their designated drop off spot, but he doesn’t care. Not right now. This was more important.

Thinking impulsively, uncharacteristically, Donnie takes the ladder three rungs at a time, pulling him upwards and outwards and _out_. He shoves the manhole back, not bothering to be precise, before leaping up onto a fire escape, hands grasping and grabbing expertly as he makes his way onto the nearest roof. 

He stands for a second, remembers he didn’t even bring his staff, another naive move, but. It wasn’t like anyone was there to seriously wound him anymore, was there?

Leo would scoff at that, he’d tell his younger brother to be prepared for everything, anything, no matter what. He’d been ingrained into believing that, from a younger age. They all had, by their father. 

_But_ , Donnie also thinks, a wry grin stretching across his face as the drops hit his face carelessly, soft and insistent and he _finally_ feels something uncoil in his stomach. _Leo isn’t here_. _And this is worth it_.

He thinks he should hate the rain. He knows he should hate the rain. He’d practically begged himself to hate the rain. It stood for everything bad in his life, the loss and the pain and the grieving and the death. But he couldn’t. He…

The grin becomes bigger as the rain comes down harder, going from gentle to pelting against his olive green skin and Donnie whoops, brown eyes stretched wider in almost childlike excitement as the clouds finally break and it all just _comes down_ . He’s drenched in seconds, water dripping off his purple bandanna and his shell and his nose and Donnie just laughs, he’s just _laughing -_

And that isn’t only laughter anymore, it’s tears, it’s sobs, it’s repressed anger and carefully masked emotions and Donnie just laughs harder, cries harder, he doesn’t know where the emotion is coming from and he doesn’t even care anymore, just carefully lowers himself down into his knees and _feels_ as the rain continues to fall, kind and passionate and unforgiving and unrelenting. So warm and so, so cold.

He’d been mad at Splinter, at first. For putting himself in danger and getting in between the Shredder. For sacrificing himself. For leaving them. And then that anger had shifted to Leo, because apparently Splinter had left Leo, his greatest son, his perfect _leader_ , _his future Sensei_ , with a gift. And what had that gift been?

A goodbye! Something no one else had gotten, and. _And, and, and_ \- 

And Donnie couldn’t take that, couldn’t figure out why Leo was so _damn_ special, what set him apart from the rest, from Raph and Mikey and even April and Casey, who weren’t a part of their family since the very, very beginning but Splinter had treated them like they were his own, they were just as much family as his biological children and - 

And Donnie didn’t even get to say goodbye. It had been a full two months since it all happened, since they lost him. Sometimes Donnie felt so many emotions, so many useless emotions that he couldn’t control, he’d have to lock himself in his lab so he could breathe, so he could calm down. So he didn’t have to show any other self besides calm, collected, kind, sweetly sarcastic Donatello. It ached. 

He was their doctor, their engineer, their mechanic. And he couldn’t keep _himself_ together half the time. Hypocritical.

It just wasn't fair. It was getting easier to handle but at the same time it was getting harder, like he was walking up a muddy slope that just got slicker the farther up he got. He couldn't ever make it to the top, something always had to roll over the top of that slope and careen straight into him, sending him back to the bottom. And he'd only just get up and try again, because that's what he's always been told to do. Always.

His fingers tremble and he opens his eyes, staring down at them. Rain was falling steadfastly over and off his three fingers, joining the ever growing puddle drenching his knees. Lightning flashes, illuminating the callouses and the fading grease and the bruises and cuts and scrapes from battles won and lost, feels them tingle with an energy much like the one he’d gotten seconds before April pulled him apart.

They’d lost her, for a good month. She’d come back, eventually, like she always did, but she had lost weight and wouldn’t look any of them in the eyes, even when they’d reminded her that it wasn’t completely her fault, that she wasn’t the bad person, that they still cared about her. Tired circles lay underneath her eyes, permanent ones, that she’d managed to conceal with makeup. It hurt Donnie to see one of his favorite people, one of the bravest warriors he’d ever known, fall like she had. 

He didn’t hold anything against her, he couldn’t. She was April, and he was Donnie, and she had made a mistake and he had forgiven her, and that was that. Except it _wasn’t_ , because like she reminded him whenever she fell back into a reclusive mess, she had killed him. And nothing he said would make it better.

It was getting better though, piece by piece. She had started eating with them again, started coming over, participating in events and training and brawls with whoever was unlucky enough to pick a fight with them. She had lost a part of her eyes, though, a gleam that she used to wear proudly. It worried Donnie to no ends, worried the rest of them, too, especially when she said she was fine. She had stepped up when Splinter had died, had made sure they were still breathing and still eating and not dead on the floor whenever she stopped by. She was probably with them now, wondering where he was. It was hard to meet her gaze nowadays.

Donnie was content to sit, eyes angled downwards as the rain hit the back of his head, the back of his neck, the puddles around him reflecting the clouds above. The tears had joined the rest of the water on the ground, the last of them dripping off his chin. The city was alight with motion like always, cars splashing muddy water every which way, including unsuspecting pedestrians (if their yells were anything to go by). Donnie finds that he can breathe a bit easier, alone on an abandoned rooftop, alone in a rainstorm. Alone in an afterglow.

Donnie’s supposed to hate the rain. He really is. But he feels a bit of that horrible tension lift off his shoulders as he slips back into the sewers, grabs the (cold by now, probably) pizza. He treks back down the sewer tunnels, wayward water still dripping off his face and the bottom of his shell as he goes. He feels at peace for the first time in months, but it all comes to a crash as he reaches the turnstiles. Casey and April are there, all right, and so are his brothers, and they look worried.

They look up as he enters, a mixture of relief and suspicion etching their features. “Where were you? We tried to call you, Don, why didn’t you answer -

He didn’t bother to tell them that he’d left his phone here in his lab. “Must not have heard it, sorry Leo.” Donnie lies, and Leo narrows his eyes. 

“Why’re you all wet, dude?” Casey asks, and the others look up and down Donnie’s body, seemingly just realizing that Donnie isn’t completely dry. Donnie imagines wringing Casey’s neck for half a second before replying coolly. 

“Pizza guy left the pizza a bit farther out this time,” Donnie lies again, hoping they’d just take that without complaint so he could eat and retreat back into his lab. He's in no state of mind to deal with this tonight, and if they didn't hurry it along Donnie would crack, he'd show some of the things he was trying so desperately to keep hidden.

“Huh, he’s never done that before,” Mikey muses, and Donnie shrugs, trekking a bit farther in. Avoiding the gazes of his brothers and April and Casey and setting the pizza down on the floor and flicking the lid back, he grabs a cold piece straight from the box. He wasn’t going to tell them what he was really doing topside. He couldn't.

They hated the rain.

He was supposed to hate the rain too, after all.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> it rained tonight and i feel like crying :/ im angry n donnie deserves so much better god canon just. what the fuck


End file.
